PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge:
The outcome of this appeal turns on our interpretation of the Supreme Court's recent decision in J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro
On September 29, 2010, Mary P. Ainsworth ("Ms. Ainsworth"), individually and on behalf of all wrongful death beneficiaries, filed a product liability and wrongful death action against Cargotec USA, Inc. ("Cargotec") and Moffett Engineering, Ltd. ("Moffett") in the Southern District of Mississippi. Her husband, James T. Ainsworth ("Mr. Ainsworth"), had been run over and killed by an allegedly defective forklift while he was working at Wayne Farms in Ovett, Mississippi. The forklift was designed and manufactured by Moffett, an Irish corporation with its principal place of business in Ireland, but pursuant to an exclusive sales and distribution agreement between Moffett and Cargotec it was sold to Wayne Farms by Cargotec, a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Ohio.
"Whether the district court can properly exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendant is an issue of law we review de novo."
The framework for evaluating a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction is well-settled. "A federal district court sitting in diversity may exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant if (1) the long-arm statute of the forum state confers personal jurisdiction over that defendant; and (2) exercise of such jurisdiction by the forum state is consistent with due process under the United States Constitution."
In cases involving a product sold or manufactured by a foreign defendant, this Circuit has consistently followed a "stream-of-commerce" approach to personal jurisdiction, under which the minimum contacts requirement is met so long as the court "finds that the defendant delivered the product into the stream of commerce with the expectation that it would be purchased by or used by consumers in the forum state."
The district court concluded that Moffett is subject to personal jurisdiction in Mississippi because it was foreseeable to Moffett that its products would be purchased by consumers in Mississippi. The district court based its conclusion on the exclusive sales and distribution agreement between Moffett, the manufacturer of the forklift, and Cargotec, its seller to Mr. Ainsworth's employer. Pursuant to that agreement, Cargotec is the exclusive marketer and distributor of Moffett's forklifts throughout the United States. Cargotec is Moffett's only customer in the United States; Moffett does not sell forklifts directly to other customers in the United States. The district court reasoned that Moffett was subject to personal jurisdiction in Mississippi under the stream-of-commerce approach because "(1) it had entered into a sales and distribution agreement which specifically defined Cargotec's sales territory as the entire United States, (2) it was aware that Cargotec marketed its product throughout the entire United States, and (3) it made no attempt to limit the scope of Cargotec's marketing efforts." On interlocutory appeal, Moffett argues that application
We disagree and find that application of the stream-of-commerce approach in this case does not run afoul of McIntyre's narrow holding. The facts of McIntyre are straightforward. Robert Nicastro injured his hand in New Jersey while using a machine manufactured by J. McIntyre Machinery ("McIntyre"). The machine had been manufactured in England, where McIntyre was incorporated and operated, then sold to a U.S. distributor, which in turn sold and shipped the machine to New Jersey. McIntyre did not market, sell, or ship machines to New Jersey, and the U.S. distributor had only sold one of McIntyre's machines in New Jersey — the machine that caused Mr. Nicastro's injury. Mr. Nicastro sued McIntyre in New Jersey, and the New Jersey Supreme Court held personal jurisdiction was proper.
The Supreme Court reversed but did not produce a majority opinion. Justice Kennedy authored a plurality opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas. Under the plurality's approach to personal jurisdiction, "[t]he defendant's transmission of goods permits the exercise of jurisdiction only where the defendant can be said to have targeted the forum; as a general rule, it is not enough that the defendant might have predicted that its goods will reach the forum State."
Justice Breyer made clear that his view that "resolving [the] case require[d] no more than adhering to [the Supreme Court's] precedents" and that his decision was "based on the facts," which involved only a single sale in New Jersey.
Justice Breyer did criticize New Jersey's test, which would subject a foreign defendant to jurisdiction so long as it "knows or reasonably should know that its products are distributed through a nationwide distribution system that might lead to those products being sold in any of the
We are not persuaded that Mississippi's exercise of jurisdiction must call upon such a broad power. To the contrary, Justice Breyer's concurrence was explicitly based on Supreme Court precedent and on McIntyre's specific facts, we find that this case falls outside its limited scope. This is not a case of a single, or even a few, isolated sales in Mississippi. The facts in the record establish that Moffett could have "reasonably anticipated" being haled into court in Mississippi. Cargotec sells or markets Moffett products in all fifty states, and Moffett makes no attempt to limit the territory in which Cargotec sells its products. From 2000 through September 2010, Moffett sold 13,073 forklifts to Cargotec, worth approximately 254,000,000. Cargotec sold 203 of those forklifts, worth approximately 3,950,000, to customers in Mississippi. Those Mississippi sales accounted for approximately 1.55% of Moffett's United States sales during that period. Moreover, the record indicates that Moffett designed and manufactures a forklift for poultry-related uses. Thus, even though Moffett did not have specific knowledge of sales by Cargotec in Mississippi, it reasonably could have expected that such sales would be made, given the fact that Mississippi is the fourth largest poultry-producing state in the United States.
The only other circuit court to squarely address McIntyre's narrowest holding reached a similar conclusion. In AFTG-TG, LLC v. Nuvoton Tech. Corp., the Federal Circuit explained that "the crux of Justice Breyer's concurrence was that the Supreme Court's framework applying the stream-of-commerce theory — including the conflicting articulations of that theory in Asahi [Metal Industry Company, Ltd. v. Superior Court of California, Solano County, 480 U.S. 102, 107 S.Ct. 1026, 94 L.Ed.2d 92 (1987)] — had not changed, and that the defendant's activities in McIntyre failed to establish personal jurisdiction under any articulation of that theory."
For the reasons set forth above, we AFFIRM the district court's interlocutory order finding personal jurisdiction and denying dismissal.